My daughter is beautiful

I've been kind of caught up in Sam and Julie stuff lately, and Jessie has been flying under the radar.  But I've been noticing, more and more, that she's kind of... gorgeous.  I mean, she's mine.  Right?  So of course, I always think she's beautiful.  But this is different.  She's suddenly... a lot older looking.  A lot more... gorgeous.  She's all long legs and skinny, skinny body.  Her cheekbones are suddenly there, her eyes are bigger.   Her hair is longer, she's more put together somehow.  She's carrying herself differently, somehow.  She's growing up on me, and she's stunning.

Fourth grade is big.  Not only is she suddenly toting home textbooks and switching classes - they don't have automatic school conferences anymore.  Because in the K-3 age frame - you're really relying on the teachers to take care of your kids.  Not just teach them, but to watch out for them.  To make sure that they're okay.  And now... that's just not needed anymore. We can certainly meet with teachers to discuss academics, but that's what they're there for.  To teach.  Not to take care of them.  Jessie's more than capable of taking care of herself now.  It's a big change, and I'm feeling a little... just not ready for it.

It's the little things, like realizing that I don't really worry about getting her to bed.  I worry about Sam getting enough sleep, but Jessie can stay up later.  If Sam's still awake at eight thirty, I start feeling the pressure to get him asleep as quickly as I can.  With Jessie, it's looser.  I still have to tell her to settle down and go to bed, but it's not the same intensity.  It's being told by the teachers at last night's Know Your School night that we aren't supposed to be correcting their homework and helping them so much.  Now, the teachers don't want you to sit beside your child and walk them thru it, they want the child to be able to do the work on their own, or to come to them for help.  That's enormous.  There's this huge transfer, on a whole bunch of different levels, of control over to them.  I'm not saying that she's an adult.  But she's responsible for a lot more than her little brother is.  She's capable of so much more, all of a sudden.  I know that it's not really all of a sudden, that it's a gradual process, and it's just that I'm suddenly aware of it.  But it feels like she woke up and aged three years one day in late August.

My baby girl isn't a baby anymore.  I know I say that all the time, about both of them... but wow.  You know?  I mean, she's my baby.  She's my first little angel girl, and I'm gradually, slowly, realizing that she's really, really growing up.